California islands focus of conference

Oxnard event for scientists also includes free public sessions

For three days this week, bald eagles, wild skunks, pig hunters and prehistoric Indians will be packed into an Oxnard conference room.

Or rather, the scientists, anthropologists and biologists who have studied those subjects will gather at an Oxnard hotel to discuss all the work they have done and what wonders they have discovered on California's many islands.

The seventh California Islands Symposium that takes place Tuesday through Thursday gives scientist an opportunity to share their studies with one another and the public. While the bulk of the presentations are about the Channel Islands, other areas are being discussed, including islands off Mexico.

The talks are geared toward scientists who understand such things as &quot;genetic differentiation among Lotus taxa&quot; and &quot;nectarivore-plant interactions,&quot; but the conference is open to the public for a $200 fee.

Starting Thursday night and continuing Friday, a free conference details the biological and socio-economic changes that have happened over the first five years of fishing reserves around the islands.

&quot;This encompasses all the natural and cultural projects that are going on,&quot; said Dave Garcelon, who is helping put on the conference and led efforts to re-establish bald eagle and fox populations in the Channel Islands National Park.

The conference is held every four or five years, and this year promises to have many highlights of the dramatic changes since the last one in 2003, said Tim Coonan, a biologist with the park who is chairing the committee to put on the event.

&quot;It took a couple of decades to get these large-scale projects to take place, and now we are implementing them,&quot; he said.

The park has become a petri dish of sorts, where scientists are aggressively working to restore the islands to a natural state after decades of influence by farmers, settlers and exotic species.

Since the last conference, wild pigs have been eradicated from Santa Cruz Island, populations of island foxes are quickly rebounding and golden eagles have been taken off the islands while bald eagles have flourished.

The conference gives people a chance to understand much of the work that goes on at the islands that many see daily but few have visited.

&quot;I think it's something that everyone stares out and sees and wonders what is going on out there,&quot; Garcelon said.

&quot;This is a chance to actually hear some of the stories going on.&quot;

Often the scientists are too caught up with their own research to get a chance to see what others are working on, he said.

This gives them a chance to share their work.

Both he and Coonan said they are looking forward to hearing how Mexican scientists deal with ecological challenges south of the border.

The conference runs Tuesday through Thursday at Embassy Suites Mandalay Beach Hotel & Resort in Oxnard. Registration is available at the door.